Only
by SeverEstHolmes
Summary: It is a challenge going from two to one, especially if you've always been part of a duo... Written for the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition.


**The Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition.  
Wimbourne Wasps - Beater 2.**

**Overall Prompt: The task is to write a fic that starts and ends _with the same word._  
****BEATER 2 - **an adverb (a word used to describe a verb, eg. Never would... with never being the adverb)  
Optional Prompts: confused (word); confounding (word); ground (word).

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Only: and no one or nothing more besides. Singularity can be pleasant, or it can be lonely, it can be defining or destructive. To George, all that singularity was, was different…

Being a twin was special… There is something intrinsically intertwined about being so closely formed, so closely related, to another human being. From the moment when life was first conceived, to share it with another in such an intimate manner is not only a privilege afforded to only a few, but also an honour. It's a form of symbiosis, with each part of the relationship being equally dependant on the other for good or ill. The emotional intelligence bond, the succour, the synergy that was shared. Siblings have a closeness – heightened through familial bonds, or shared experiences, or genetics; but even siblings can't understand what it means to be two parts of one whole, and no one can understand it like identical twins… From the moment that George Weasley opened his eyes, from the second that air hit his lungs as a tiny new born screaming into this new unknown world, he was linked in that symbiotic relationship with Fred.

And George never questioned that closeness between him and Fred – at first he just thought it was part and parcel of being a brother, especially at how confused everyone seemed to be when presented with the two of them. Perhaps it was their incredible identicalness, down to the last freckle – so close that even their own parents and other brothers and sister struggled to identify. Maybe more telling was how they acted – feeding off one another, acting in unconscious unison, confounding the understanding of all who met them.

In their early childhood neither Fred nor George had appeared to grasp the enormity and importance of the word 'I'… and why should they? For it wasn't a word that they used in their everyday vocabulary, it wasn't one they were required to comprehend… Fred and George were "we", there was never any question about that, and within themselves what was the use of the singular if _they _were in the plural? They were a unit – there was no Fred without George, and no George without Fred – the Weasley _twins, _and that was what defined them. So they created their own understandings, regardless of whether other people would understand, all they needed was themselves… and they made quite a team – whether that was impacted more because they were twins, or whether it was coincidence they didn't know. What they did find out as they grew older was that two was _definitely _better than one – and the unlimited opportunities for fun and mischief that arose, from their ability to swap places and be undetected, were just too good to resist. So when the rolled around for Fred and George to take up the slots of the fourth and fifth Weasleys at Hogwarts, their joint identities had been solidified into a phrase that was to outline, define and guide them – the mischief makers.

Maybe their connectedness could be explained by their genetics, or some other factor; but George believed that he and Fred were soul mates… not in the way that lovers were soul mates, but more that they were one soul in two casings that lived, and understood, and interpreted the same… And it paid off – their invisible beam of understanding opened up realms of possibility – and by the end of their Hogwarts career, enabled the two of them to realise their ambitions and begin Weasley's Wizard Wheezes… and it was _perfect _for the both of them.

But then it happened…

And the world, everything, came crashing to the ground... Fred was gone... and George was torn in two...

For a long time after the war, George just didn't accept it- he would not let go of such a huge part of him, he _couldn't_ let go. And he watched as his family around him grieved for Fred, but slowly- one by one, they moved on... and George couldn't understand how they managed it. Perhaps it was their closer bond, or perhaps it was that ever since the War George had felt as though half of him, the better half, had been unceremoniously separated.

So he locked himself away, barricaded himself within the flat above the shop which had once belonged to his brother and him, and now was inhabited by only him... Inside him a chasm had opened up, a huge dark nothingness which made him feel entirely hollow and not quite real. Nothing George did could make it go away; no amount of tears filled it, ignoring it only made its presence more obvious, and waiting for "time to make it better" as so many people insisted that it would, did absolutely nothing at all... He saw Fred everywhere- at first he ignored it, he didn't want to see his brother, it only made the pain worse; yet Fred didn't seem to want to go away. Whether it was his spirit, or his memory, or the other half of George that couldn't bear to leave him in such a state, he had no idea; and as time passed, the presence intensified- just as the gaping hole inside George widened and deepened and dragged more and more of George's soul inside.

Time would be no healer for George... Its passing wouldn't bring comfort, or change, or remunerations. For nothing could repair the part of George that was lost, nothing could bind or patch up the section of his soul that had been ripped from him through the loss of Fred. And the grief of his family, and the commiserations of friends would do nothing to change anything, no matter how often or numerous they came...

Nothing, and no one, could ever understand or ever repair what was now gone... For what had been two, had been cut down to one. Both the Weasley twins reduced to _only_ George... and through one action the intertwining link, that had begun when they were first conceived, was broken. Without Fred, there was a singularity. Without Fred, there was an enormity of new vocabulary and new understanding that was foreign. Without Fred, there were no mischief makers, no Weasley twins... Singularity for George could only be destructive, for when the two were split, one could not cope without the other; when there was no both, there was no only…

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******A/N: I hope you enjoyed reading this, and I'd love to know what you think about it! :)**


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